Being a student, you have so many things on your plate; classes, grades, stress, friends, family, college responsibilities, and finding yourself. School counselors are made to cater to these needs and help students with these issues.

It’s important that they help out students with whatever they’re going through so it won’t affect their learning. However, certain students tend to go under the radar and be ignored by their counselors, never being called in or never even seeing their counselor during the entire course of their time in high school.

I know you can always make an appointment, but there’s something unwelcoming about counselors not reaching out to you. It’s easier for them to reach out to you than it is for you to reach out to them, so why don’t they ever do it?

Counseling can lead to better mental health which leads to less conflict and more efficiency in learning and social life in school. Better school counseling and focus on mental health can even lead to less conflict like shootings and violence. Yet many school counseling offices remain ineffective for many students.

A report released on the behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation showed results from a survey asking 600 students to rate the quality of their high school counselor interactions, if this had to do with basic counseling or help with the college application process.

It turns out students said it was poor, and fair at best. Sixty percent of the students said they felt like another face in the crowd. This shows how universal the problem is, not just to Hudson High, but to schools all around.

Walking into a counseling office and feeling unwelcome and uncomfortable doesn’t make students want to be there. We don’t know how many students are silently struggling who might not be able to make an appointment with their counselor themselves.  

If you think school counselors shouldn’t have these responsibilities to help students through these issues, just think about how much time students spend in school. Imagine the circumstances they might be under to prevent them from asking an adult or professional.

School is the easiest way to have access to help, and it’s important that the help is competent. When a big chunk of students talk about having issues with their counselors and not being able to get the help they need at school, that’s a problem. The counseling department clearly doesn’t cater to all kinds of people.  

After all of these flaws pointed out and the importance of a good counselor, what can be done at HHS and even other schools to improve? I think we can do many things, like hire more counselors.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling states that the optimal student to counselor ratio should be 100-1. However, they say that the average ratio in 2009 was 265-1, and sometimes 600-1 is bigger schools.

Also, counselors should make an effort to reach out to their students. I think it should be a given that if a student never comes in, the counselor should call them down at least once or twice a year to quickly catch up on things and get to know them.

Less students would fall under the radar and be forgotten. Instead, students would actually feel recognized and valued by an adult in the school. That’s a great feeling, and can be helpful when struggling with things at school academically, socially, etc..

We should make counselors open, inviting, and welcoming when students come in, not waiting and going through several different people and several different rooms to finally be able to talk to someone even just for 10 minutes.

Students who have a tougher time with school would be able to thrive with new improvements to have their needs met, their voice heard, and someone to pay attention to them, especially during an age where some people might feel alone.